This is CBS Eye on the World.

Here's John Batchelor.

Professor Joseph Ellis,

The Cause is the new book,

The American Revolution and its discontents.

It is now the summer of 1778.

The French Empire and the Spanish Empire have re-entered the contest, a global war with the United Kingdom, the navies at sea.

The prize of all is the Caribbean Islands, the sugar islands.

That means that the British now must make a decision. And the decision is,

do we continue to pour men and money into fighting the colonies who are, after all, troublesome and

they're part of us? Or do we fight our enemies across the channel and their allies in Spain

for the grand prize of the

Sugar Islands and Gibraltar and other parts of the world, the global war. The professor

writes a scene that is, well, as Washington often said about this war, no one would believe

it. It must be fiction. This is a moment when Lord Pitt

stands to make a speech to the House of Lords saying, we must compromise. Pitt has always been

against this war. Pitt was famous for winning the French and Indian, what we call the French

and Indian War over the French, stop fighting our

countrymen, make a deal, give them independence, and then he collapses.

Professor, this is a scene that tells me that George III wasn't listening to his best counselor.

He collapsed and died in the House of Lords.

Was there any thought now that it's time to get out or were they too bloody-minded already?

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